Here’s an advent wreath liturgy by Rev. Nancy J, using Isaiah 2:2-5.
Advent Wreath Candle-Lighting Liturgy
Each year we tell ourselves it will be different. We will say no to the fuss and the stress. We will say yes to opening our hearts for the Christ child. Yet each year the neighbor across the street gets Christmas lights up before we do. And the calendar fills up quickly: holiday programs, Christmas parties, volunteering, shopping, cleaning, baking, putting up the Christmas tree. Before we know it, nothing has changed at all. This year, the invitation comes to us again.
Listen. An ancient prophet dreams of a world transformed by God’s vision of peace:
In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house will be the highest of the mountains…all the nations will stream to it. Many will say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths.”…The Lord will judge between the nations, and will settle disputes for many peoples; they will beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation will not lift up sword against nation, neither will they learn war any more.
Today we light the first candle of Advent. One solitary light that flickers with the hopes and dreams of all the years gone by. This year, we pray for that ancient dream of God’s realm of peace. All we want for Christmas is God’s peace, in our hearts, in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in the world.
